


flowers for the dead (hours for the living)

by stardustandswimmingpools



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brooklyn, Cemetery, Flowers, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Miscommunication, Slash, Strangers to Lovers, does it count as miscommunication if it's on purpose, i mean it doesn't say that but you can pretty safely contextualize it as modern day, it's just race's mom no big whoop, lying by omission, newsies accents, possibly OOC but don't think about it, sort of pre-slash but then gets a little into it, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 11:03:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15884748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustandswimmingpools/pseuds/stardustandswimmingpools
Summary: There's a house with a magnificent garden on the way to the cemetery. It's a small house, nothing special, but the flowers in the front are a plethora of colors, vibrant, vivacious petals decorating the yard. And Race is a little too broke to buy flowers for his mom every week, so yeah, he takes a few from the garden. It's not like they’re taking inventory.





	flowers for the dead (hours for the living)

**Author's Note:**

> this is a “Sometimes I steal flowers from your garden on my way to the cemetery, but today you’ve caught me and have demanded to come with me to make sure the “girl is pretty enough to warrant flower theft” and I’m trying to figure out how to break it to you that we’re on our way to a graveyard” AU and I absolutely stole it from tumblr. I also wrote it, hmm, like a year and a half ago, and just never posted it. but here it is! a little sprace one-shot AU.  
> side note, i know the title definitely sounds like it's a song quote or something but i swear to god it's not, that is the title in my google docs and i don't know where it came from. someday they'll quote me.  
> enjoy!

Race doesn’t have any kind of affinity for flowers. He just thinks his mom must have, or they wouldn’t be painted all over his house. It’s not like they’d had a flower garden; she’d never told Race, “You know what I love? Flowers.” But Race could tell, like sometimes you can just tell stuff about someone. And because she’d loved flowers so much, it’s only right to leave her some on her grave.

It’s still hard thinking about his mom and realizing everything he’s saying — thinking — is in the past tense. She’d loved flowers. Once. Before she died, she thought they were beautiful.

Race hates flowers.

There's a house with a magnificent garden on the way to the cemetery. It's a small house, nothing special, but the flowers in the front are a plethora of colors, vibrant, vivacious petals decorating the yard. And Race is a little too broke to buy flowers for his mom every week, so yeah, he takes a few from the garden. It's not like they’re taking inventory. Probably.

The guy who lives in the house — the only person Race has ever seen — looks around seventeen, like Race, short and cute and laid-back. Race only knows this because he came by to visit his mom one week but the kid was sitting on the front stoop, so he waved halfheartedly instead and walked past without stopping.

Usually, no one is in the garden, and Race is in the clear. Like today.

He stops in front of the house, feigning casualty, like he belongs there. He crouches over. On a bush at the edge of the yard are deep pink — maybe roses, maybe just some fancy flower that looks like them. They're pretty, Race decides, with a measure of distance, like he’s only determining this opinion through his mother’s eyes. He reaches into the bush and breaks off three.

Just as he’s straightening up to leave, he hears the door open, and turns with wide eyes.

“I knew it,” the guy says, standing in the doorway, looking both smug and disdainful. “Looks like there’s a little thief stealin’ flowers from our yard.”

Race drops the flowers. “I'm — sorry,” he says, feeling his stomach drop. “I didn't mean any harm, for real. Just —”

The kid snorts. “Yeah, yeah. Well, if you’s gonna be stealin’ our flowers, you better have one drop-dead gorgeous lady to give ‘em to.”

Race blanches. “‘Scuse me?”

“Yeah,” the guy says, making his way down the front steps and advancing. Race is innately reminded of a tiger stalking prey. “So here’s the deal. I’d like to come with you and meet the pretty girl who’s makin’ you nick our flowers straight from our yard. And then you can take anything you like.” He gestures invitingly to the yard. Race is stuck between confused, afraid, and amused at the entire situation.

He thinks Race is taking his flowers for a _girl?_

Well, technically speaking, he is.

Right.

“So whaddaya say?” The guy says. He walks with confidence, admirably, as if he can just stroll in and accompany Race on his hypothetical date. “Free flowers, so long as I know who’s gettin’ em.”

Race stares for a long moment, and finally says, “First tell me your name.”

The guy laughs. He’s finally reached the front of the yard and stands only a few feet from Race. “Fair enough. Call me Spot.”

“‘Zat your name?”

“It is to you,” Spot says. “What’s yours?”

“Call me Race,” Race says, quirking his eyebrows a bit. Spot grins.

“‘Zat your name?”

“Touché,” Race says dryly. “Well, if you're comin’, you’re comin’. So come.”

Spot studies Race for just a minute before stepping to Race. “Alright. Where to?”

Race picks up the flowers he’d dropped and starts walking. Spot keeps up. “Uh,” he starts. “You’ll just hafta see.”

Spot laughs. “Guess I earned that,” he says coolly. “I don't mean to crash your date. Curiosity killed the cat.”

“I've been told that Spot is a good cat’s name,” Race agrees. The road turns right, and both boys turn with it. Spot doesn't dignify Race’s comment with a response.

“How come you’re curious about what I'm doing with your flowers, anyway?” Race asks, eyes trained on the pavement ahead of him.

“‘Cause they's mine,” Spot says, in one of those _no-duh_ voices.

“So? They's flowers. They’ll grow back.”

“It's a matter of pride. If you’re takin’ my flowers and some girl’s getting ‘em and doesn't know that I’m the one growing ‘em, maybe her affections are misplaced.”

Race exhales. “Sure. She don't care so much, I'll be honest.”

Spot tucks his thumbs into his belt loops, and maybe it's just to maintain some tough-guy appearance, but it's infuriatingly hot. Race is _not_ getting into this right now. Spot thinks he's straight. Spot thinks he's stealing flowers for some girl. If that doesn't scream straight-guy, nothing does.

“How d’you know?”

“‘Cause I can read minds,” Race replies in a monotone voice. “I just know.”

Spot shakes his head. “Girls is impossible to read. I don't even try. ‘Least with boys you know when they’re mad or whatever. Can never tell with girls.”

Race nods robotically. “Sure.”

They walk in silence for a bit, Race kicking rocks with the toe of his sneakers, Spot with his hands shoved in his pockets. It’s unclear when Spot will figure out that they’re not going to a date — that they’re going to the grave of a dead woman — and Race figures he probably should have mentioned that from the get-go, but. Spot shouldn’t have just _assumed_ they were flowers for a date. So Race remains staunchly silent.

“Hey, the cemetery’s down this way,” Spot observes after a spell of quiet. Race almost laughs. _How astute_. “You meetin’ your girl at the graveyard or somethin’?”

“Or somethin’,” Race mutters. The graveyard comes into view and Race grips his flowers a bit tighter. It doesn't make him nervous, really — not anymore, it's just…

When Race starts toward the graveyard, Spot whistles. “Wow, you weren’t kidding! She must be —”

“There's no _she_ ,” Race snaps, finally, hand on the gate of the cemetery. And yeah, maybe it's a little unfair. He doesn't even know Spot and snapping at him is unwarranted. But Spot doesn't know him, and there he’d gone, making all kinds of assumptions. Grounded in what? Nothing. “I'm gay, and I'm visiting my dead mom, and I _don’t_ have a girlfriend, and I don't got a lot of money, which is why I’ve been stealing your flowers, which, believe me, I regret. So just.” Race glares daggers at a dumbfounded Spot before shoving the gate open with so much force that it swings around and hits the gate around the inside with a clang. He storms inside.

And there it is. That's that. He’ll find another garden to steal from. Or he’ll just stop stealing flowers. Because it _doesn’t_ matter. His mom doesn't care. She's dead. She's _dead!_ And she won't care even if he puts a dead rat on her grave, because she's dead and can't see or smell the beautiful flowers and she's _not coming back_. And Spot can fuck himself.

Race crosses to the back of the cemetery, fury driving him more than anything, clamping his hand so tightly around the flowers that the stems are being crushed. He throws them at his mom’s headstone.

“There you go, mum,” he grinds out, “your fucking flowers. Which I stole for you. ‘Cause you fucking liked them, so good for you. Here they are. Thrilled.”

He collapses in the dirt, which isn't yet covered in grass, and that’s fucking depressing, so Race sits with his head in his hands, not crying, but sort of disappearing. He can probably never return to Brooklyn. Not with Spot roaming free. He’ll hate Race — which is fine, because Race hates him, what an asshole, who does he think he is, that he can just invade Race’s life like that, accompany him to the cemetery like it’s the theater. No, it's fine. They'll just mutually hate each other forever.

“Race,” he hears, and groans loudly.

“ _What_ ,” Race growls, lifting his head up to meet Spot’s eyes. “Why’s you still here? You got a dead mother too?”

Spot doesn't smile. “I ain’t a saint,” he says, scuffing his toes in the hard ground. “And I didn't mean to intrude. So — sorry. I guess.”

Race doesn't know what to say to that. There's something in the way he apologizes, like it's not something he does a lot, and —

He's an _asshole_.

But he apologized.

Christ.

Race sighs. “Whatever. I shoulda told you, probably.”

Spot shrugs. “None of my business.” He leans against a tree, his arms folded over his chest, and Race doesn’t look at him, because he’s really attractive, and Race is trying to be _sad_ and _angry_ , damn it. “I meant to ask, though.” Pause. “Well. Never mind.”

Race rolls his eyes and looks up. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Start to talk and then stop, like you want me to ask you what you was gonna say before you say it.”

Spot cracks a smile. “Fine. I was gonna ask, if you’s so inclined, would you wanna go on a real date? No flowers, guaranteed. Not even pictures of ‘em.” He stops, setting his face as casually as he can, even though Race isn’t stupid, and Spot is absolutely insane and crazy if he thinks asking someone out at their mom’s grave is a good idea.

Race turns to the headstone. “Whaddaya think, mum? Should I do it? Should I date this asshole?”

The headstone doesn’t answer, thank god. But Race turns back to Spot with a half-smile. “Yeah, my mum approves. She likes your flowers. Turns out her affections were misplaced after all.”

Spot laughs. “Sure. So was yours, though.”

Race tilts his head, confused.

“All this time stealin’ my flowers,” Spot explains, a twinkle in his eye, “and you never once thought to ring the doorbell and ask?”

Race blinks. “No?”

Which was foolish, come to think of it. He could’ve gotten himself a date _way_ quicker.  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i hope you liked this lil fic. i'm on tumblr [@vivilevone](http://vivilevone.tumblr.com) if you wanna come and chat! bye!


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